by Mars Dorian
Alien alliance up Rosco’s ass.
The whole peacemaking deal was probably nothing but a ploy to have both human factions weaken each other enough so the alien forces could take on the last man standing.
Rosco formed his fist and was ready to smash his side display when he saw the Vanguard. Like, another one, showing up on his side screen, flying in a parallel trajectory to his. Followed by another Vanguard, and another one, and yet another one.
Ming smiled from her position. Her body eased up for a breath. Rosco leaned back into his seat and watched the decoy armada cluttering the close combat range.
Finally.
77
Rosco grinned like a boy pulling off the score of the century, because in a way, he did.
The fighters and turrets of the military freighter dispersed their attention because of the decoy armada that swarmed around the close combat perimeter. Only few missiles launched after the real Vanguard, and the few that did received premium treatment by the ship’s now freed-up point defense lasers. “eQuip?”
“Impact in T-minus twenty-five seconds, sir.”
The Vanguard missiles impacted with the thrusters of the enemy freighter and ripped through the pods that maneuvered the engines. The debris spewed in all directions. Hundreds of pieces vanished into the thrust as it decreased.
“Direct hit. Enemy ship losing speed rapidly.”
Ming shook her head. “That’s not going to destroy them, sir. All their weapon systems will still be operational.”
“I don’t care about their weapon systems.”
“But—“
The Vanguard’s turrets launched volleys of rapid projectile emitters. They ripped through the thrusters of the military freighter. The Vanguard’s main laser battery fired relentlessly as the element of surprise was still on their side.
eQuip commented every volley. “The freighter’s speed decreases by over fifty-five percent. TemCom access improbable.”
The magic words Rosco had been waiting for since the start of the space skirmish.
“Fighters are targeting our ship again.”
Rosco shrugged it off.
“Too late.”
Both Yeltzin and Ming looked up at him with invisible question marks on their faces. They still hadn’t understood the trick Rosco pulled off.
“Slayton has already lost the battle.”
78
“The freighter's speed decreases to sixty-three percent. Will decelerate to one g within five minutes, thirty seconds.”
The remaining fighters whirled around their capital freighter like clueless bees not knowing who to sting.
“I don’t understand,” Yeltzin said.
And judging by Ming’s bewildered look, he wasn’t the only one.
Rosco decided to break the tension. “They’re mercs, Lieutenant. And they’ve just realized they lost the battle and thus the bounty.”
The enemy ship propelled toward the exoplanet like a frigate webbed by a tractor beam. With its main thrusters severely damaged, the freighter was unable to maneuver or set another course. Physics was beating Slayton into compliance.
Rosco exposed his trick. “You know that first freighter that had crash-landed on the planet? It really wasn’t shot down by the aliens.”
“I told you, sir,” Ming said.
Rosco continued. “Those types of freighters were all constructed under zero g conditions in orbital shipyards. They are meant for interstellar travel; not suborbital—or even planetary entry—like our Vanguard is. So when the crew of the first freighter reached the planet’s orbit, they had underestimated Grisaille’s strong gravitational pull, probably due to inaccurate intel.”
Yeltzin seemed to experience an A-ha moment. Rosco realized the gentle giant made the connection with the crash-landing and the current dilemma of the enemy freighter.
“You lured the freighter into the exoplanet’s gravitational pull and damaged the thrusters to keep it from building enough escape velocity.”
Rosco nodded. His ship didn’t carry the armament necessary to take down the military capital ship, that’s why he had to ‘borrow’ the planet’s natural laws.
Physics killed the pirate star.
“The atmosphere is probably too weak to melt the entire freighter, but its pull will force the freighter to crash on the surface. Just like its predecessor.”
Rosco winked. “Jackpot.”
eQuip cheered from her terminal. “That was a brilliant decision, Captain.”
They watched the gravity of the planet pulling in the heavy freighter like a siren on a beach rock. An ailing giant unable to escape its looming demise.
Morbid beauty at its best.
Rosco neither felt joy nor hatred. He was just glad he and his crew survived the hardest skirmish of his career.
eQuip beeped from behind. “Incoming hail from the freighter.”
Rosco’s first reaction was to ignore him. There was nothing to say to that moral cripple of a merc, but curiosity won him over.
“Put him through, but audio only.”
Slayton spoke. “Look what our virtual reality boy has accomplished. Bravo.”
So much bite in his voice.
“You must feel so proud of yourself, Captain Tellride. David against Goliath in space. Ha, achievement unlocked.”
That’s exactly how Rosco would have felt if it hadn’t been for the exhaustion strangling his limbs. “If I were you, I’d stop talking and look for the nearest escape pod.”
An ugly laughter reverberated through the intercom. The crew looked at their captain with questionable faces. The merc spoke with a scratchy voice.
“Escape pods? The Sunblood? That’s gold, boy. They don’t allow its crew to flee from battle.”
Rosco knew the philosophy behind it. The tactic hailed from ancient Earth where the Spanish colonizer Cortez burned the boats after his troops had landed on the island. The reason? With no means of return, the men would fight to death because surrender was not an option. Thousands of years old, and still relevant in the solar system’s colonization age. Some of humanity’s traits, especially the cruelest, persisted.
Rosco observed as the freighter entered the first layer of Grisaille’s atmosphere. With the help of the tactical screen’s zoom, he could see an orange heat building up on its bulk, ready to devour the rear. The degrees must have been in the thousands. Whoever was still alive inside the ship would become a fireball before it crashed on the rocky surface.
Not a pretty picture, but that was the path the mercs had chosen.
Rosco’s crew, including the engineer, watched the main screen with the zoomed-in view. Slayton still lulled over the intercom, but for some reason, Rosco decided to leave him alone.
The Sunblood captain said, “You know, many, many years ago, I too was working for Daystellar.”
Sounded absurd, but Rosco allowed him to speak.
“I was an asteroid miner on Stellar Four, just like my father. What a life out in the void. Fixing the laser drillers, working with the grapple hook, carrying heavy loads with the walker. Tough-ass job, but I loved it. Felt good to finish the day with a sweat-soaked body underneath the astrogear. Always had a couple of drinks with the buddies afterwards.”
Slayton sounded like a broken old man. “Always on time, never sick. For almost twenty years… can you believe it? Then the whole asteroid disaster struck, man. Talking about life defining moments, shit. I lost my leg and arm within a minute. Debris penetrated my gear as I started bleedin’ from the inside.”
He paused.
Rosco cringed at the thought and eQuip whispered from behind him, “Do you want me to shut him off?”
Rosco thought about it but said, “No, not yet.”
“…they put me into the emergency room, stopped the bleeding… and drugged me up good. Meds tried to patch me on the go, but my body was so damaged from the debris I was lying in bed for weeks feeling like a zombie on Burrn. Damn blood leaked from my arms and legs… soa
ked the bed sheets… I started smellin’ like a Martian downer… not a pretty sight… you should have seen my little girl’s face when she saw me. Sweetheart melted with fear…”
Ming Brakemoto narrowed her eyes. She probably didn’t understand why the captain was letting Slayton mumble. Rosco wasn’t sure the man even cared if anyone was listening at this stage. He just blabbered on.
“…guess what happened next? Yeah, spoiler alert: they fired me. Almost twenty years of attendance with solid work and these suckers just kicked me out… for real, I mean… get outta here.”
The military freighter vanished into the atmosphere. Its friction coated a flaming wall around the craft.
“…honest work and meaningful existence, it’s just a cosmic lie to keep our dulled minds complacent. Truth is, there’s no greater meaning, we’re all lifeless matter waiting for the solar radiation to decompose us. Seriously, what’s the point? You give your all and the overlords beat your butt on a whim. To them, you’re just a number. Cartel or corp, ain’t a difference…”
Rosco didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut.
“Daystellar or the Sunblood…they both deal with goods for profits, invade territories to harvest minerals, and use their influence and money to bribe anyone in their way.”
Ming wanted to chime in but Rosco shushed her with a look that said don’t interrupt the last words of a dying man, but it was already too late. White noise dominated the line. The enemy ship drowned deeper into the planet’s atmospherical soup. The fireballing freighter started to resemble a meteor trailing down the gray skies. Even the hull plates couldn’t resist that amount of surging temperature. Rosco pictured the massive ship breaking apart and spiraling down in burning debris. The connection of the freighter fizzled out, but before Slayton’s voice faded, he said,
“I was a damn good miner.”
79
Winning never felt so anti-climatic.
Even though the Sunblood freighter had long vanished from the main screen, the crew still glued their eyes to the scenery. Even the oxygen from the life support system’s recyclers tasted heavy. Silence ruled the bridge until eQuip interrupted the moment. “Captain?”
Rosco remembered his role. “Damage report.”
“Sections two to four are sealed, and the weapons bay—or what is left of it—is isolated. Comm array is done for but we already knew that.”
“What about the TemCom Drive?”
“Still operational.”
Rosco nodded and turned to face her. The Newtype woman looked like an ageless Venus being wrapped by a tech shell.
“Then take us to the Ares City spaceport. Doctor, tell our allies that we thank them for their help, and that we defeated the threat for now. We’ll come back with representatives and begin peace talks.”
“Yes, sir.”
“For the rest of us: it’s time to go home.”
“Yes, sir.”
She even saluted as she prepared the transforming pods that filled up with the anti-g cream. Rosco inspected every member of his crew to make sure they were ready for the long sleep.
“Got your stims?”
Yeltzin and Ming each swallowed a pill before entering their seats that now functioned as hibernation containers. The nanobots in everyone’s bloodstream would ensure their energy consumption was kept at a minimum during their stasis. And even if something did go wrong, eQuip was only a nano-enhanced blink away. The perks of being a pure cybernetic organism. The engineer and the soldier creamed into stasis; only Ming and the captain remained awake. Rosco could tell the doctor was hesitating. “If there’s something on your mind, now’s the time to spill it.”
Her face twitched. Rosco wished he carried the power to unlock her head and take a glimpse. The woman had baffled him since the last temporal compression.
“Sir, I want to excuse myself for my earlier behavior. You’ve done a great job of keeping us alive, and I have treated you unfairly. I know I’m not always the easiest one around, but sometimes the passion for my subject overrules social conduct.”
She seemed to struggle finding the right words. “I owe you my life and I should never forget it, despite the hurtful comments you had expressed on Grisaille’s surface.”
What happened next was as miraculous as the TemCom Drive itself. Ming Brakemoto stretched her arms and wrapped them around Rosco. An encounter so rare the captain had to remember its name.
Hug.
The doctor even squeezed tight which doubled the captain’s frowns.
“Noted,” he said and cringed.
“It’s heartwarming to see that not everything that creeps out a VR capsule is freaky,” Ming said.
Another cryptic statement; at least one part of Ming was still recognizable. The captain accepted her apology and clapped his hands. Rosco could swear eQuip grinned inside her terminal. Ming finally released the grip and stepped back with wide eyes. Something lingered on her lips but didn’t dare to slip over. “Anything else, Doctor?”
“That’s all, sir.”
Ming approached her pod-seat and it wrapped around her. eQuip opened her mouth once only her and the captain remained active.
“Sir? Before the Sunblood freighter rocketed down Grisaille’s atmosphere, Captain Slayton had sent you a priority message. It contains confidential information about your ICED-led attack against his asteroid Burrn facility. Would you like to read it?”
Rosco’s first reaction was to dismiss the message since it came from a corrupt mercenary, but his curiosity ruled over bias. “Feed it to my brain during the stasis.”
“Roger.”
The captain sunk his head into his and felt the oxygenated liquid filling his lungs.
Still felt like choking.
Seriously, whoever came up with that torture liquid must have had a masochistic streak in their body. The seating-pod shut itself and geared back into its niche inside the bridge.
eQuip stood next to his unit, knocked at the hull and said, “Sweet dreams, sir. If someone or something attacks us, I’ll wake you up.”
‘That would be nice’ was the sentence Rosco wanted to utter, but the cream in his lungs prevented him from producing even a squeak. His mind shut down as the void engulfed his brain.
M, watch over me, I’m coming home.
80
“Docking process commencing.”
Magical words that bewitched Rosco’s heart. “Crew, we’re home.”
And in one piece, which was even better.
The crew’s exhaustion swapped for elation. Even the engineer burst out a smile. Group rapport just leveled up heaps. Coming home to the Martian colony never felt so refreshing.
eQuip maneuvered the DSS Vanguard into the shipyard. The robotized arms on the side rails connected with the ship and attached it to the docking station of the hangar. A few, dull clink clonk sounds later and the ship was steady. eQuip switched off the main screen and made the walls transparent again. A crowd of people cheered in the hangar bay.
“Looks like we aren’t the only ones,” Yeltzin said.
Amongst the pilots and the personnel cheered various media units. Cam-droids hovered near the ceiling and swarmed around the Vanguard’s exterior hull; Rosco guessed at least a hundred people hailing from all major colonies, according to their looks.
“More action,” Ekström said as he fumbled with his pod-seat. He looked panicked with all the sweat pearls rushing down his temple. “Don’t worry. We can handle them.”
“Safe and sound,” eQuip said and disconnected herself from the terminal. Rosco watched her walk out the central core with the elegance of a dancer.
“Have you been attached to that thing the whole time?” Rosco said.
“Ever since we’ve left Mars, Captain.”
And yet, no sign of exhaustion on her face. eQuip looked as upbeat as ever. “It was a pleasure to serve you.”
Her hand waved at the left door of the dome bridge. “Now let’s welcome the media, shall we?”
Captain Tellride took charge and ordered the rest of the crew follow him. They waddled through the membrane corridors and reached the airlock door leading to the hangar hatch which was connected to a stage. A tanned woman with bleached teeth, wearing a blue nanofiber suit with yellow stripes, waved at them.
Rosco tilted his head toward his crew and whispered, “Can we still go back?”
Yeltzin and Ming chuckled when Lo-Skova stretched her arms like a bad actress trying to mime a messiah. “The heroes of humanity have arrived. Applause. Applause.”
The media group arched around the stage and unleashed a solar storm of clapping. Dozens of cam-droids circumnavigated the crew as the stage lights shone down on them. Ming bowed, and soon so did everyone else in the Vanguard team, including the captain.
Lo-Skova hugged each member and pressed tight. “I’m so glad y’all made it back with your limbs still attached.” Her eyes focused on Rosco exclusively. “Welcome back to the red planet, Captain.”
“It’s a pleasure to be home.”
And he meant every syllable. Rosco and his crew lined up on the stage and posed for the hyper res shots from the cam-droids.
Despite the techtoos and the nanobots keeping his body in shape, the exhaustion from the long-distance travel, coupled with the constant action of the last weeks, lowered his attention. Rosco’s body remained present but the mind slipped into a slumber dimension. He heard Lo-Skova spilling her usual PR shenanigans and waited for the part of the speech that mattered:
“Please allow our team to rest from their epic struggles. But don’t worry, we will have an exclusive question and answer event in two sols, here in Ares City at eighteen hours local time. Not only are all of you invited, but you will be granted personal access to each of our crew members.”
The CEO certainly knew how to work the crowd even though there must have been critical voices among them. Despite the operation’s success, Daystellar attracted many haters, not just from its corporate competitors and officers of ICED.
After more small-talk to the press, Lo-Skova guided the crew from the stage to the nearest exit gate of the hangar.